THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
quarry entered a perfect jungle of fallen trees, small spruces and high 
grass, where I felt sure he would lie up, so, proceeding with the utmost 
caution and with my rifle at “ the ready,” I peered into every thicket. 
I had, however, hardly entered this place when I heard the stag rise and 
crash away, leaping over the fallen trees. I could hear him zig-zagging 
about as a pursued deer always does, and so fought through the cover and 
ran parallel along the slope to head the beast before he left the thicket. 
However, I was just too late to catch a glimpse of him, so, whistling to 
Pietro to come on, I resumed the track through a somewhat open beech 
forest. The stag was now nearly exhausted, for he had at once resumed a 
walk, and it was not long before I caught a glimpse of something moving 
ahead; a sharp forward dash disclosed the stag about a hundred yards 
away about to enter a thicket. I took a snap shot and the beast at once fell, 
but, struggling to its legs, it ran slowly away, when, on rising a slight 
eminence, I got a clear shot and struck it through the heart. 
A curious incident now happened as I ran forward to gloat upon my 
prize. I saw that it was not dead, and so fired at the neck to kill it as quickly 
as possible. At the moment at which I pressed the trigger a woodcock 
rose, as it seemed, directly in the line of fire, and I believe that my bullet 
passed through its wing as it sped to its final goal. It would indeed have 
been an extraordinary thing if I had killed a stag and a woodcock with one 
bullet, a circumstance that was within an ace of happening. Thus died my 
first good Carpathian stag, after a chase of four miles, lasting three hours. 
I was very pleased to have been able to follow the track myself, for spooring 
is of all phases of hunting the most interesting and exciting. I asked Pietro 
if our quarry was a big stag, and he answered with a deprecating shrug, 
as much as to say that he was of average size; and yet next day, when I 
weighed him, without liver, heart, entrails and head, and when there was 
much loss of blood owing to cutting up, he was above 33 stone English, and 
not a bad beast. The head was a really good one of 40 inches, thick and 
rough, with fourteen good points. Naturally I was much pleased in having 
killed a good specimen of the great Carpathian red deer, though I knew that 
there were many far better in the adjacent forests if we could only have the 
luck to hear them calling. 
The next day we had a tremendous tramp, and did not return till mid- 
day to the koliba, and then found the horses gone, so I had another ten- 
mile walk to Zelonica, where I found most of the hunters assembled pre- 
vious to taking their departure. 
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